Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

Some of you may remember Eugene Narrett, who was a fixture on the MWDN opinion pages back in the 1990s. A part-time professor at Framingham State, Eugene was a tea-partier before full-throated criticism of liberal thought and liberals was cool. Because of his views – virulently pro-Israel, anti-Clinton, anti-modernism – he was something of a lightning rod both here and at FSC. He and I disagreed often on politics and occasionally on the best way to voice strong opinions in a mainstream local newspaper. I recall regular calls for me to exile him from our stable of contributors – which of course hardened my determination to keep him writing. I don’t recall what led to our eventual parting of the ways, or the controversy that led to his leaving FSC, by maybe Rob can remind us.

Eugene Narrett, 64, who lived in Maynard, was struck and killed Friday night by a hit-and-run driver in Brattleboro, Vermont. Apparently a gallery in Brattleboro was exhibiting his paintings, some of which can be seen here: www.passionremnants.wordpress.com. Our archives are limited, and I haven’t found any links to the pieces he wrote to the MWDN, but I’ll keep looking.